Ethos
by mediumrawr
Summary: A multipart series about a man who rediscovers himself, AU after Resurrection Ship. Onesided GaiusKara for now.
1. Analyze

She stumbled into his...well, in his less cynical moments he called it his office, as if such a word as office had any meaning at all anymore, half angry and half depressed at something, and being who she was, the anger half naturally converted itself into rage, and the depression half naturally converted itself into...well, into rage.

Usually.

However, when she began to strip, right in front of him, he determined – logically to the very end – that she had decided to unleash her anger through sex rather than fighting. Which was generally more pleasant for him, who rather liked getting laid more than getting hit.

Nevertheless, unlike some men, the tears struggling against her eyes was something of a turn-off for him, so he interrupted her before she could make much progress: "What are you doing?"

"That's an awful stupid question for a genius."

He smiles briefly. He stands awkwardly from his desk, bumping against it accidentally and nearly stumbling back into his chair, but he averts disaster barely and it's back to the talking. "I'm not entirely sure what opinion you have on me, though I suspect it's not quite as high as I might like. And the Gods know that my opinion of myself becomes very low at times, but at the present it is not so low as to be your comfort frak." He paused; that may not have been especially true. "Especially when I get the feeling I'm just substituting for someone else."

And so he had successfully, but totally unintentionally, converted her desire to frak him into the more predictable and much less fun desire to punch him. And the next words out of her mouth were, indeed, "You little frakker-"

But he deflected her with a quick comment - "The whole point of this was that I'm not, I believe." She pauses for a moment, if only to dissect his sentence, but it's the window he needs. "But your reaction indicates I'm probably correct. So it comes to, in my mind, three possibilities."

"You've figured out three possibilities already?"

"Maybe you forgot, but I am a genius. Now, then: first, new, bad news of your lover on Caprica, unlikely but not impossible. Second, your little boytoy Agathon finally told you he was tired of using you as a substitute for the Cylon down in the brig, extremely unlikely given that he is suffering from depression – well hidden depression, but rather severe – and that his self-esteem is even lower than mine. It would be a wonder if he could muster the will to contradict you on anything anymore."

"So you've got this all figured out, don't you?"

"Oh no. The third option has to do with the younger Adama. Unfortunately, there are several thousand different interactions you could have with Captain Apollo, as the President is so fond of calling him, that would lead to your present emotional state. Nevertheless, the severity-"

"You talk like an encyclopedia."

"If you're going to insult me, please do two things. Please do not interrupt me while I'm speaking, and please, please, come up with something original. I became exhausted of that one in sixth grade."

She smiles despite herself, which means he's winning.

"Nevertheless, as I was saying, the severity of your apparent emotions indicates that your discussion with Lee would have regarded something very important to you. So either he tried to take you off the duty roster or one of you tried to take your odd relationship to a more romantic and less friendly level."

"Great. Now you know everything. I'm going to go find someone who i _is /i _willing to frak me. Not something I have to go on an extensive search for, usually. Maybe Gaeta-"

"Unlikely. The Lieutenant is presently trying to understand where his attraction for Petty Officer Dualla fits into his homosexuality."

At that she laughs outright. "I'll find someone." She turns to leave.

But he speaks. "I'm sure you will."And she is about to leave again when he asks: "Out of curiosity, which one was it?" But she does not answer. She just leaves.

She left her jacket in his office.


	2. Bluff

Triad, Gaius Baltar has found, is an effective method of diverting oneself. Ambrosia, likewise, is an effective method of forgetting. Together, they make an effective method of avoiding just about anything one wants to.

While Gaius is a terrific Triad player, he has not had nearly enough ambrosia, and one of the things he is trying to forget is sitting at the table with him. The other is blissfully absent, for once, though she has been present more often recently, having something to hang over his head.

He has narrowed her down to three possibilities: either she is a hallucination, he had some sort of invisible chip implanted in her head, or he was a Cylon. He hated the fact that being a Cylon made the most sense of them. He was not like Valerii, plagued with emotional outbursts. He had thought about it methodically, and it made the most sense that he was a Cylon; it explained the physical therapy, his genius, how he had survived the shockwave from an atomic explosion, and the frakking hallucination in his head.

He took another shot. He knew everyone at the table was a little perplexed at just how much he was drinking this particular day, but that mattered quite a bit less to him than that he forget. And considering the other matter he was avoiding was sitting directly across from him, taking his money at an alarming rate, he needed a lot more ambrosia.

He already knew every hand that every player had. He had watched the way cards were discarded and dealt for several hands now, and he could have predicted pretty accurately what was in his next hand, too, if he had not been drunk. But he would never have even been playing had he been drunk.

She laughs as he raises his bet again, which usually indicates that she's bluffing and trying to lower his confidence. He'll raise by less next time, to make her think she's succeeding. Hot Dog, just far enough to his side that he cannot quite see Gaius's cards, but is constantly trying to, has three on a run and is fooled once again by Kara's act, so he folds despite his hand. Apollo, to Hot Dog's right, has run brothers, which makes him overconfident, and he raises even more. Starbuck laughs and matches it, then dumps some more creds in just to annoy him. Racetrack has already folded. By the end of the hand, Starbuck has conned Lee into pushing all of his tiny pile into the pot, even though she has nothing. As soon as she does, he snorts, harshly, and folds. Because she's not bluffing this time.

So the game is winding down, now. Hot Dog is staying in it, but only by folding any time he has a hand that is not absolutely spectacular. Racetrack has given up entirely, and is taking what's left of her savings and running. Lee is still at the table – a clear violation of the rules – even though he's no longer participating.

And Gaius appears to have just made a rather terrible misjudgement. No doubt the other players think it's because he's drunk(since last count, he has consumed an additional three shots). And he is drunk. But he also has Starbuck right where he wants her. So he loses the last of this portion of his stash, and then buys himself back in with what he really came here for, a single Caprican Imperial cigar.

It's worth more than what's left of Hot Dog's creds, alone. Which, he knows, is enough to get Hot Dog to back off. But Starbuck, of course, is only more interested. She laughs and agrees, and Lee deals, looking a little concerned, but Gaius already knows exactly what cards he is going to get.

Gaius makes a little conversation, Starbuck responds with her playful insults. He smiles a little, and banters back.

He laughs as she starts to unfold her hand; she has a skip, but that's not what's funny. He wonders as he says it if he would say it if he was not drunk, but he is drunk, so it really does not faze him.

"You know, I saw your personnel file." He pours himself another shot, for good measure. "And, interestingly, so have both of the other Adamas." He pauses to down the shot. "So it occurs to me that either they are both incredibly stupid, or at least one of them knows and has never said anything to you about it. Who knows? Maybe they're being noble, letting you take your own time getting it out. On the other hand, maybe they're just trying to forget about it, because they're so terrified of the possibility that it might be true that they refuse to deal with it at all."

She grits her teeth, but forces out of them "Put down your cards."

He smiles briefly and does so. He has nothing. "Enjoy your cigar", he says, and stumbles out.


	3. Choke

Gaius knows exactly what he has incurred through his little display. He knew it before he did it, and it was a calculated risk. His plan required that he frighten Thrace in a public area, preferably somewhere with a person that she respected – that she cared about, even. The Triad game had been the most easily available situation. He had, however, underestimated the reaction that Lee Adama would have. No matter, however. He had had enough time to clean any fragile work out of his office before the pilot came striding into his room.

Not much more, though. He was still organizing some files into a folder when Lee slammed him up against a wall, knocking his glasses loose and scattering his papers across the floor. It knocked his breath and his plan away from his head for a moment, and for that moment he was almost scared. But then he remembered who he was dealing with, he remembered that he knew exactly how to deal with him. He tried to laugh, and got out no more than a harsh breath before he gave up on started talking. "Now, ordinarily I might try to remind the man who was assaulting me that I am the vice president, but I expect-"

"What were you talking about?"

"If you'll please refrain from interrupting me," Gaius said, trying not to focus on how ridiculous that sounded coming from a man hovering six inches from the floor, "I was saying that I expect that it wouldn't work on you, so instead I'll just remind you that you are assaulting a civilian."

"Frak you."

"No, Adama, here's the thing. For the first time in quite a long time, I have the moral high ground." Gaius laughed.

"If you don't-"

"What? What will you do?"

"I could leave you a bloody pulp and no one would care."

"I'd love to contradict you, there, but if you wouldn't mind putting me down first, so that we can-"

Lee punched him in the face.

"Or we could keep talking like this." Gaius paused, to get a bearing on the situation. "Look. I believe you'll do whatever you want, and I can't stop you. And if you wanted to know something else, I'd be happy to tell you, really." He coughed, adjusted his glasses. "But it's not my secret to tell. So...could you let me down, and then you can go interrogate Starbuck instead?"

The CAG's hand loosened from around his neck. He crumpled to the ground, rubbing his neck. He looked up to see the captain looming above him, looking like he wanted to say something, but finally just stomping out.

Six sat at his desk, smiling impishly. "You're a very interesting man, Gaius Baltar."

Gaius looked up, panting, coughed twice, and spoke. "Oh, frak you."


	4. Deny

"You didn't tell him."

He could understand her perfectly, even though she was speaking around a cigar. He suspected it was a skill honed by practice, making yourself understood even when you had something long and -

No, he really did not want to go there, even in his thoughts. Especially in his thoughts.

He did not really want her to be here.

He had been in love with her once.

Even when she had been alive, or rather, even when she had been manifest, she had never before had a cigar. But now she could make cigars appear out of nowhere. And even though he was at his desk – standing, actually, no longer pacing behind it – and she was leaning in her feigned casual way against the far wall, he could tell from where he was it was Caprican Imperial. Which meant she knew.

This was not a surprise. He would have been disappointed in her – in an odd, detached, way – had she not figured it out. She had probably figured it out weeks ago. His odd fascination with Thrace had come at least that far out of the bottle.

Suddenly he felt exhausted. She was still there, which meant she wanted an answer. Another of their little games did not appeal to him at the moment, but he could never seem to stop them.

"No," he said, drawing up all of his strength. "I did not tell him."

"Why not?" she asked, suddenly accusatory.

Gaius allowed a single hard laugh, almost a cough, to escape. Then he paused, and actually looked at her. "You were there. You know why."

"I know what you told him. I want to know why you did it."

"You really are a fool." Gaius started. Then he stopped. He knew it would drive her mad if he just left it there.

And it did. "You dare to call-"

"No." Gaius said, and it felt freeing."You're worse than that. A fool, at least, understands what he is told." She is looking at him with some alarm, now. The cigar is gone. "A fool does not create complicated lies to disguise his foolishness." She does not understand what he is doing. He feels empowered. "A fool, at least, understands morality." She almost cringes now. She does not quite shrink into the wall, not quite. But he is facing her squarely now. "A fool, at least, has a morality."

She tries to defend herself briefly. She says "I have-"

But he is better than this, for once. He is better than her estimations and her calculations put him down to be. "No!" He says, cutting her off. A sudden burst of strength and adrenaline, and the whole desk, with his computer and his papers, has gone crashing off to a side of the room. "You have no morality." He takes a step forward. "You have a crackpot religion." Another step. "Idiocy you and your toaster brethren invented-" Another. "just so you could get carte blanche for your recklessness." Another. "There is no plan, is there?" Another. "There is no plan," another, "there is no God," another, "and there is no you."

She disappears.

He feels joyful. He has proven, once and for all, that he can be better than her. His whole life is changed. Everything feels better. He turns back from the wall to begin righting the mess of his desk, when he sees Thrace.

She is standing in the doorway, looking at him with a slightly open mouth and fearful eyes, and suddenly all of his joy and rejuvenation is gone, replaced by despair.

And she says "Oh gods" and turns, and runs.


	5. Establish

He wakes up and groans. And remembers.

_Fear. His greatest act of courage in years has betrayed him. His secret, his one great secret, revealed. He will be destroyed. He will lose the respect of all humanity. He will lose the respect of her._

_Well, he never really had her respect, but this will not go a long way toward fixing it._

_He needs time. Time. Tick-tock. Focus. Time._

_He needs to hide. He needs... Gina! His last hope, perhaps. He needs to get to Gina. But there are no friendly faces, here. There are contacts, of course, who – Gaeta?_

_No, no. He is in a good position for most things, but he does not control flights. And he has no good black mail material for Captain Kelly._

_He needs a pilot. Without bothering to think again, he launches himself out of the room, propelling himself toward the pilots' bunks. The answer is Katraine._

_There is walking, rushing, shuffling, trying not to look suspicious and desperately aware that it is only making you look more suspicious. There are strange looks people give you as you proceed, and you wish you had not demanded quarters so near the CIC and so far from the pilots._

_Then there are the marines. He sees them, and one of them lowers the gun to point at him, and without another thought – again, not thinking, idiot – he turns and tries to run._

_There is sudden, blistering pain in his side. He looks down and finds he is bleeding._

_Someone grabs him, and then someone else, and they begin to drag him. Somewhere along the line he passes out._

He remembers. And then he sleeps.

He wakes when he is kicked in the head. He slides backwards against the cold floor. With another groan he opens his eyes, and he sees a black boot, and then the rest of the black uniform of the Colonial Marines. There is another kick, this one to the gut. He grunts. He will not scream. He **will not** scream.

There is another kick. And another. He refuses to give in. Besides, he doubts he can manage the breath to scream anyway.

The kicking stops. He passes out again.

Gaius comes to some time later – there is no way of telling time – to raised voices. One of them is low, but female. He cannot immediately identify it. "--supposed to work with this?"

And then a lower, masculine voice. "Just softening him up for you."

He looks up. He sees the marine first, a big, burly man, probably half cruelty and half blind loyalty. Everything a marine had been supposed to be, back in the glory days.

The other one is Thrace. She is angry. He is not quite certain why. He is having difficulty thinking. There is pain, and he is not very good with pain. The marine stomps out, leaving Thrace standing, looking down on me. He wonders how he went from interrogator to prisoner in so short a time. He was in her shoes not so long ago. Will she be as kind as he was?

This is Thrace, though. Of course not.

She says "I know you're awake."

He sits up, feels the drip of blood down his side. He says "I'm not a Cylon."

She snorts. "It's a little late for that."

"I'm not a Cylon." He takes a breath, coughs, takes another one. "But I have information."

"Information's good."

"I want a full medical exam by Doctor Cottle." She takes in his bleeding form, and nods slightly. "I'll think about it. Anything else?"

"I want a pen, and a pad of paper." Something occurs to him after a moment. "And when I'm done with that pad, I want more after that."

She laughs. "I can't see you pulling off any amazing escapes with only a pen and a few pieces of paper."

"Don't underestimate me," he says, and then the lie: "I'd have been out by now if I wanted to."

She laughs at that. "Right." She shrugs. "Now what's your informaion."

"Not until Cottle patches me up, thank you." And then the strain of forming complete sentences, of the parries and ripostes of conversations with Thrace, overwhelms him. He passes out again, and he doesn't even realize that when he falls forward, she catches his head.


End file.
